This Week In Self Help (December 15 17 + 19)

(image from here)

It was a regular ol' week for me as I just did my three shows. One of my three shows immediately follows another of my three shows so it's like I just do two shows. The smaller number of shows I do, the more palatable it is for Portland listeners. Hopefully eventually I'll make it down to no shows & everyone will be relieved.

Oh no I forgot! I did a show yesterday! Now the city hates me even more!

The Dickenbock Report celebrated the anniversary of the Venera 7 landing on the planet Venus. So I played lots of songs about Venus & talked to an astronaut who plans to go to Venus. Listen to that show in two places: on the XRAY website or on the Self Help Radio website (username: SHR, password: selfhelp).

Self Help Radio shared many more improvised bits with my dear friend Russell as my spiritual mentor the Rev Dr Howard Gently. I don't think I've laughed & cried simultaneously as much in my life as when I do these shows. Listen to that show in two places: on the KBOO website or on the Self Help Radio website (username: SHR, password: selfhelp).

The show after Self Help Radio is called Corporate Standardized Programming & this month I am trying to play music by artists we lost in 2024. I'm doing it chronologically (by their death) & have made it (sigh) to mid-September. That show is appended to the KBOO link above or you can listen to it by itself on the Self Help Radio website (username: SHR, password: selfhelp).

Finally! Yesterday I played some ska, rocksteady, & reggae for a couple of hours in the afternoon on KBOO. KBOO doesn't archive its sub shows so you can't listen there but you can see the playlist on Spinitron (I haven't updated that on the show's website yet) & you can listen to it on the Self Help Radio website (username: SHR, password: selfhelp).

That was all.

Self Help Radio 121724: Howard Gently Year Three, Concluded

Maybe not entirely concluded. We made it to January 2017.

The show contained lots of Howard Gently bits - improvised with my late friend Russell playing the Reverend Doctor - paired with songs from the shows the interviews were on. In a few airbreaks I contextualized things if needed. I tried not to get too sad. It's so very strange to have recordings of a familiar & beloved voice that you know you'll never hear again in real life. & I am so grateful I have those recordings.

& yeah, I understand this is a very personal project & may not appeal to everyone. But perhaps you'll enjoy two old friends trying their best to crack each other up. If only I had saved the whole sessions!

You can listen to this show in two places: on the KBOO website, & on the Self Help Radio website. Should you choose the latter, you will probably need a username & password to download. Those are SHR & selfhelp. The playlist is below. Please enjoy.

Or as Dr Gently would say, "Blessed be."

Howard Gently Year Three Concluded

"My Wandering Days Are Over" Belle & Sebastian _Tigermilk_

Howard Gently on the theme "Wandering"

"Say Boss Man" Bo Diddley _Bo Diddley_

Howard Gently on the theme "Bosses"

"Elephant Talk" King Crimson _Discipline_

Howard Gently on the theme "Elephants"

"The Past" Screamin' Jay Hawkins _The Best Of Red Top Records Volume 2_

Howard Gently on the theme "Past Lives"

"We Got To Meet Death One Day (Take 1)" Blind Willie McTell _Complete Recorded Works, Vol.3 (1933-35)_

Howard Gently on the theme "Death"

"Try A Little Tenderness" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story_

Howard Gently on the theme "Tenderness"

"Black & White World" Elvis Costello _Taking Liberties_

Howard Gently on the theme "Black & White"

"The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party" John Fahey _Guitar Vol. 4 / The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party & Other Excursions_

Howard Gently on the theme "Birthdays 2016"

"Travel Agent" Monty Python _Monty Python's Previous Record_

Howard Gently on the theme "Travel"

Howard Gently on the theme "Christmas 2016"

"Electric Cafe" Kraftwerk _Electric Cafe_ 

Howard Gently on the theme "New Year 2017"

Howard Gently on the theme "Dust"

Whither Howard Gently Year Three, Concluded?

That image up there is the one my friend Russell chose as the "press photo" of his "alter ego" Brother Russell. It appeared on his prank CDs & on his old website (now defunct) but surprisingly not on his Bandcamp page where you can listen to & purchase his old prank calls. I have no idea where he found it.

Russell died last year but for the longest time he appeared on Self Help Radio as my spiritual mentor The Rev Dr Howard Gently, a charlatan & con man in the grand tradition. Our interviews were improvised around the show's theme. Russell was also my oldest & dearest friend & I have been playing his appearances on the show in chronological order since his passing. I'll do that every three months until that sad day when I have exhausted them. Or who knows I'll start all over again. It's a sad comfort to hear his voice. I feel profoundly grateful to have these recordings.

We collaborated a lot in 2016 & it's taken three shows to present all the interviews we did. Heck, we actually might not conclude the year! We will begin with his sixty-seventh appearance on the show - from September 28, 2016, when the show aired in Lexington, Kentucky - & we'll go from there. Listening through the bits, he continued to make me laugh out loud. Like he did in life.

That will happen tonight, from midnight to 2am, on 90.7fm in Portland, on kboo dot fm everywhere. If you enjoy the bits only half as much as I do, you will love them.

Preface To Howard Gently Year Three, Concluded: It All Has To Start Somewhere

(image from here)

This is a story I may have told before. But since, this week, I'll be playing more improvised bits by dear friend Russell, I wanted to share with you something he did that, I think, changed my life: he made me a mix tape.

Russell & I bonded over our love of the Beatles but by the time I entered ninth grade I was still listening to the radio to find new music. He suggested to me that he might make me a mix of David Bowie. I knew Bowie from his hits but otherwise didn't know much about him. So I gave Russell a blank tape & oh boy. It was a very cheap tape - not much like the one above. It was one of those cassette tapes you could buy in packs of three in a drug store. When I gave it to him, he looked a little disappointed - like, you want me to use this? I didn't know there was such a thing as "good quality cassette tapes." The tapes I had were the tapes my mother used to send recordings to her family in Germany. I don't what to say that he begrudgingly took the tape, but perhaps he did.

He made me a magnificent David Bowie mix which I still have today. Unfortunately I don't have it with me right now - it's in a box somewhere - but I remember that while it had some of the hits - Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust - it had some songs that have never made it onto the greatest hits. For example, as a samples from Young Americans, Russ chose not the title song nor Fame, but Somebody Up There Likes Me.

People talk about gateway drugs - that Bowie tape was gateway music. I suddenly had a sense that the music being played on commercial radio was not all that there was. There was more. For whatever reason, the radio stations were choosing to play the same thing over & over where there was a vast music library out there they ignored.

However one might map the winding path that led to the music I love & listen to now, the Bowie mix tape Russell made for me in 1983 was a revelation. & it was the beginning. That's where it all started. Gosh! I hope he knew that.